Workers’ struggles were front and center in Old Town Eureka on Wednesday.

Local activists, union members and organizers gathered at the Old Town Gazebo to celebrate workers and show solidarity with both local and international labor movements. Among those represented were members of Humboldt Grassroots, Centro del Pueblo, Justice for Josiah, Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives and several unions.

Tiffany Lafayette, of Humboldt Grassroots and one of the organizers of the event, said the event last year was much smaller, but this time 10 different organizations came together to put on a bigger event with live music and a variety of speakers.

“The labor movement hasn’t been strong lately,” Lafayette said. “This is a day to remind workers what we can do if we organize.”

Some speakers shared their personal stories about being descendants of working-class families and participating in strikes since their youth.

Christina Lastra, of Centro del Pueblo and a local Spanish teacher, spoke to the crowd of roughly 30 about how she came from three generations who “were all part of the legalized slavery that took place in the San Joaquin Valley of California.”

The conditions under which her mother worked led her to contracting tuberculosis, Lastra said. Those conditions only changed through the organizing of labor leader Cesar Chavez, Lastra said.

“I am third-generation Mexican-American, but I do not forget the efforts of my forefathers,” Lastra said, “who worked from dawn to dusk for nothing and who fought for what’s fair and right so future generations could have a better life.”

Nezzie Wade, president of Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives, speaks to a crowd of people on May Day in Old Town Eureka on May 1. The event was a collaboration between different local organizations focused on workers’ rights. (Sonia Waraich — The Times-Standard)

Nezzie Wade, president of Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives, and Max Hosford, an organizer with Cooperation Humboldt, turned the crowd’s attention to local housing issues for both the homeless and renters.

Hosford said a local tenants union is in the works to ensure landlords and property management companies aren’t taking advantage of renters.

“Not only do we need and deserve safe, inhabitable housing, but we deserve it without having to fork over most of the money we work most of our lives to make,” Hosford said.

Cooperation Humboldt also has a lot of resources to help support workers, Hosford said. Some of these projects include starting a tool lending library so people can borrow tools, ranging from wrenches to sewing machines, instead of buying them.

Nathaniel McGuigan, of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, gave a speech that was more international in scope, emphasizing the need to keep the U.S. government out of Venezuela.

“Right now within the anti-war movement, we’re focusing on Hands Off Venezuela,” McGuigan said.

McGuigan talked about U.S. imperialism targeting Latin America and Venezuela in particular since the election of the late Hugo Chavez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, in 1998.

“The Bolivarian Revolution has been a process of vibrant transformation for the working class people of Venezuela,” McGuigan said.

May Day is recognized globally as a day to celebrate labor, Lafayette said. The event has been held for 133 years since the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, during which labor leaders were accused of tossing a bomb in a crowd and were subsequently sentenced to death.

Part of the day is about recognizing and honoring “those who lost their lives fighting for labor rights,” Lafayette said.